How to Create a Shortcut for System Appearance

Written By: lyonmissions
  • Comments: 0
How to Create a Shortcut for System Appearance

Difficulty

Very easy

Steps

23

Time Required

5 - 10 minutes

Introduction

In this Guide, we will create a service using Automator to change the System Appearance from Light to Dark with a single keyboard shortcut.

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    • Open up Spotlight.

    • Click the Magnifying Glass in the menu bar.

    • Use Keyboard Shortcut: Cmd + Space

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    • Type Automator in the Text area.

    • Double Click the application to open it.

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    • Go to File => New and a window will appear.

    • You can also use the shortcut Cmd + N

    • When you open Automator, nothing will happen until you create a new document.

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    • Choose Quick Action in the window that appears.

    • Hit Enter or Click Choose

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    • We won't be walking through every single thing that Automator does in this guide, we will just be creating the shortcut.

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    • In Workflow receives, Choose Automatic

    • Beside in, Choose any application

    • If you choose anything else besides any application, the shortcut will work only when a certain application is open.

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    • In Image and Color, these will not change the shortcut at all, but you can adjust them to the way you like.

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    • The commands should look something like this:

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    • To create the action, choose Library in the Top-Left corner of the window.

    • Click the Search bar and start typing Change System Appearance

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    • Click the action that appears.

    • Drag it into the giant box

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    • The action will appear in the box.

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    • You will see three different commands: Light, Dark, Toggle Light/Dark

    • Choose Toggle Light/Dark so you won't have to create two shortcuts.

    • One for Light, one for Dark.

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    • Time to test this action!

    • Click the Run command in the corner of the window.

    • As the action is running, the screen may flash a couple of times.

    • If everything is successful, the system should be dark.

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    • Click Run once more to make the system Light

    • Make sure everything was successful by checking the text at the bottom of the window.

    • If the action was not successful, go back and make sure everything is the same as this guide.

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    • Choose File => Save or Cmd + S to save your Service. Name it whatever you wish.

    • Your Service will be saved in Users/User Name/Library/Services

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    • You can now Quit Automator

    • Click the current Application in the menu bar, and choose Services. There, you will see your new service.

    • If you are using the service for the first time, you will probably get a notification like the one in the picture. This is simply because the app wants to change your system settings, and macOS does not like it very much. Click OK to continue.

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    • Now we will add a keyboard shortcut to quickly change the system appearance.

    • Search for System Preferences in Spotlight.

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    • Click Keyboard in the window, and then Shortcuts. Then choose Services

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    • Scroll to the very bottom, you will see a section named General. You will see your Service in this section.

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    • Click on your Shortcut.

    • Click Add Shortcut.

    • A Text box will appear

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    • You can now add your own shortcut.

    • A shortcut is any combination of at least one modifier key (Cmd / Opt / Control / Shift) and one regular key (Any Letter or Number on the keyboard).

    • You should probably choose a shortcut that requires a few keys. I chose Shift+Opt+Cmd+Z. No other commands on the mac use this shortcut.

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    • When you press the keys to create your shortcut, nothing will happen, click Add Shortcut one last time and then hit enter.

    • You do not have to type out a shortcut. Simply press the keys you want to be your shortcut in order to make it.

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    • You can know quit System Preferences.

Conclusion

You can now change your system appearance by pressing your shortcut.

Author

lyonmissions

Member since: 29/03/13

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